Face to face with the fear of failure
Fear of failure: something that is ‘friends’ with every creative alive.
This particular fear likes to make itself a cup of tea, grab a blanket, and sit in the rocking-chair located in the living room of your creative space. This fear knows that one single question or comment dripping with doubt, if spoken in the moment right before you’re about to create something, can keep you from doing what you were born to do. You see, it knows when you’re about to do something monumental for the Kingdom of God as well as for the calling of your life. It knows when you’re taking steps toward something beautiful and bigger than yourself. It knows that it needs to stop you at all costs; it fears the consequences it will face when one of God’s kids steps into their creative destiny.
Fear Is Afraid, So It Speaks.
A lot of the time, we listen to its lies and become so frustrated with the creative process that we just stop and we don’t bother trying anymore. This was me and my relationship with creativity up until a few months ago. You see, I used to be best friends with the fear of failure—even the fear of perfection. Breaking up with fear can be terrifying, but it is worth it to see what awaits on the other side.
When I was young, I remember I loved creating things. I loved making mud pies out of dirt (that is creativity in it’s finest form). I loved collecting rocks and seashells at the beach and I would imagine the things I could make with them. I once tried making a perfume with the dandelions and grass I picked from my backyard (not sure what 5-year-old Emily was thinking, but you do you girl!) I also loved music and singing, and I loved water coloring the flowers we planted in my back yard each year. I loved making beaded necklaces for friends.
As I grew, I found that creating in any of these avenues was something that I easily spent hours doing. But around the time of my middle and high school years, when responsibilities were piled a mile high onto my plate, I dropped the idea that I could be creative because it certainly wasn’t practical or attainable. The ‘truth’ of the matter was that I wasn’t one of those kids who had taken music lessons since they were three years old. For me, I felt it was too late to begin to learn something new. Once I stopped creating and dreaming, it was hard to start back up again.
I began to hang out with the fear of not being good enough, which then introduced me to the fear of failure. The “I’m not as good as them, so I shouldn’t try” was one of my closest thoughts. There was the “I should have kept taking piano lessons through school so I could be more proficient, but it’s too late now”, or it was the “I won’t get it right, so I shouldn’t try”. These were the narratives playing in my head constantly.
The fear of trying something new and failing at it kept me from doing what made me come alive. Fear tries to keep you from life. It keeps you settled in the death of your dreams, and it wants to keep you there because it knows the power of finding what makes you come alive. It knows it will die once you find life.
A few months ago, this fear had a major hold on my life, especially my writing. I was so heavily controlled by this fear of failure that I would sit down to journal with my pen for hours at a time, and I would be too terrified to write. I would leave that journaling session with nothing on the page—not a single word. Because of that, I have so many unfinished or empty journals. I couldn’t process even the simple parts of my day because I was terrified of getting it wrong, of failing. This fear was crippling. It crippled my voice. It kept me from doing what the Lord created me to do.
But God Broke Through.
Just think about how good and perfect the Lord’s timing is for the breakthroughs we receive in life. For me, it wasn’t this dramatic, huge, singular moment that the Lord came and took me up to his throne and all my issues were thrown away and problems solved. It was in many quiet, tear-stained moments I took with Him where I would take small steps of courage. It wasn’t easy.
Each moment was a choice, and I would feel the fear, and still chose to take the step. It required obedience. It required me to listen to His voice when it was more familiar and comfortable for me to listen to fear. It required me to put aside perfection and be ok with something a little less than perfect. It required me to just start, to just do it, and just leave it be. It required parts of me to die. But the parts that He has resurrected within me have lead me to feel more alive than I ever have before.
I find now that the way I process my life, emotions, and deep heart journeys comes from writing. The way I worship the Lord is through my writing and my creativity. I haven’t got it all figured out, but writing in my journal doesn’t scare me anymore, and writing feels more natural than it ever has before. Wherever you are on your creative journey, I declare that there will be moments where the Lord leads you to step out in risk and watch as the fear of failure is silenced by the resounding hope and excitement of new life springing forth from your creativity.
To discover how you can be set free from the fear of failure and gain greater freedom in your creativity check out our eCourse Create to be Free.